


Wanderer

by Wolf_of_Lilacs



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Gore, Brief Dream Sex, Dreams, Fate, Horror, Love, M/M, Nongraphic Description of Corpses, Rituals, Serpentine Voldemort, Tom Riddle was Sorted into Ravenclaw, eldritch horror, so many dreams
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-10-19 00:53:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20648534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolf_of_Lilacs/pseuds/Wolf_of_Lilacs
Summary: Many years ago, Tom Riddle was Sorted into Ravenclaw. This is what followed.-They call him the Wanderer, but no one remembers where he came from, if they ever knew at all. He haunts their dreams, and few have seen his face. He whispers sweet promises, offers them their hearts' deepest desires, and some listen too, too well.But to Harry Potter, he has always meant something more. Protector, friend. Lifelong obsession. And so Harry's ready to set out to see the world, with his two best friends—dubious though they both are—in tow. His protector is trapped, he is sure, and Harry is going to save him, and maybe even the world while he's at it."Truth is a dangerous thing, and should be treated with care." Eldritch horrors are emerging into the real world that  only Harry can see. He may not be prepared for what he finds.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to all the people who have helped me throughout writing this: Red, Essa, Hei, Dark, and Earth in the workshop; Stuffle for helping me straighten out plot points and to kill a pesky subplot; and chu for the fantastic, thorough beta.
> 
> Aiming to post a chapter a week.
> 
> And please be sure to check out the art limonium made for this. It is stunning.

Many YEARS AGO

There are things in dream world’s best left alone.

No, that isn't quite right. There are dream worlds. They are best left alone.

"But mum," Harry interjects. "Dreams are nice!"

"Oh, little one," Lily, his mother, says, gently smoothing the hair back from his forehead and tucking the blanket securely around him. "Dreams can be good. They can help you find things you never knew you were missing. But dream worlds are no place for little boys like you. You'll find things, and things will find you."

"But mum," he pleads. "I'll be good. And I feel safe there. He protects me."

"Who?" Lily asks sharply. When Harry's lower lip begins to tremble, she softens her voice in apology. "Who is it, sweetheart?"

"I don't know," he mumbles. "I just see him sometimes."

_Him_, she notes, her concern deepening. “What does he look like?”

“I don’t know!” he repeats, tears starting to fall.

"Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” Lily sighs, giving him a kiss and running a soothing hand through his hair. "I suppose there's not much we can do about it right now. Don't worry, sweetheart. I'm not mad."

"Okay," Harry says.

Lily turns out Harry's light. She said she wasn't worried. She put her old dream-rune above his head just in case. No one really knows if they are any use against these sorts of dreams, but it’s all she can do, other than giving him a dose of Dreamless Sleep, which isn’t good for children Harry’s age. She’ll keep watching him, of course. If something changes…

If something changes, she has no idea what she’ll do.

She sends a letter to Professor Dumbledore, however. He might have ideas on what she should do. He’d warned her, once, that Harry may be particularly susceptible to dreams…

*

Harry wanders. He likes wandering here, where the grass is lush and green and where birds and snitches fly together, sometimes giving chase. He tries to catch them all, spreading his arms wide. Sometimes he succeeds.

It isn't always so nice here. Sometimes horrible things appear without warning, out of nowhere. Monsters with hundreds of mouths and thousands of teeth, that seem to ripple in a million different places when he looks at them. They are there, then gone, then somewhere else that he did not see them go. Sometimes they chase him. One time, he almost didn't get away. He ran, his breath coming in painful pants, his heart pounding frantically, and even his super-fast running here wasn't enough to escape.

Harry wonders sometimes what would have happened if it had caught up to him. He wonders what would have happened if he hadn't come.

The night it happened, Harry climbed a tree whose bark became soft and goopy, like mud or swamp ooze. He couldn't keep climbing. His feet sank deep into the trunk. The tree might eat him, too. Then a hand grasped him by the back of the shirt, pulling him free with an awful sucking sound. Harry tried to turn his head to see who held him, but they flew too quickly, and the wind was too strong. Harry had been certain he would die, and now they were flying free, one of his favorite things (that always terrified his mum and made her yell at his dad for encouraging him too soon). Harry whooped, but it got lost in the wind.

They landed gently. Of course, it was gentle, for in this place little strove to hurt. Harry turned, desperate to see who had saved him—

And almost wished he hadn't. For here was yet another monster. Tall, taller than Harry's dad. Pale, snake-like face. Red, red eyes. Black, sweeping robes. Harry had no idea what he could possibly be. "Wha—?" Harry said, too shocked by his rescue to manage anything else.

"There are places you should not go, Harry Potter." And then the man or monster or something not quite either placed a cool finger in the center of Harry's forehead. "Wake." And Harry did.

There were other times, other meetings, other near deaths. Harry remembers all of them. How could he forget?

But all of this began many years ago. Harry is nearly grown now.

PRESENT DAY

“Mr. Potter, have you understood a word I’ve said in the last fifteen minutes?” Professor McGonagall sits behind her desk, strands of her black hair slowly coming out of its bun. She’s been giving career advice sessions (or in the case of the seventh years, voluntary career evaluation sessions) for the last two days and looks ready to hex someone, or better yet, Transfigure them into something unpleasant.

“Yeah,” Harry says. “I want to be an Auror, but first I want to travel places.”

“Hmm. And I strenuously recommend against that because…”

“It’s best to get a start on entrance exams sooner rather than later,” Harry parrots dutifully, “because spots fill quickly.”

McGonagall pinches the bridge of her nose and takes a ginger newt from a tin in her drawer. “If you want to travel, Potter, why be an Auror in the first place? Why not research?”

“No Arithmancy,” he reminds her. Hermione had tried to convince him to join her, but he’d always been awful at maths in primary school and got numbers mixed up.

“Ah, that’s right. As I told you two years ago, there are other possibilities available to you. Healer, for instance.”

Harry’s mum is a world-renowned potioneer. Harry’s dad is an Auror. It’s not that he wants to be an Auror. It’s just that Aurors chase Dark wixes and mysterious things. He might have a better chance of finding the wizard of his dreams. (He flushes a little at the thought.)

“I’m still deciding,” he mutters. “I, er, have time.”

McGonagall shakes her head. “Potter.”

“Yes, professor?”

“I went to school with someone who ostensibly _traveled_ after he finished. He hasn’t been seen since. I don’t want that to be you, too.”

“I’d be careful—”

But she’s on a roll. “Potter, you could do anything else. You could play Quidditch professionally and be damn good at it, Merlin knows. I beg you. Please reconsider.”

He gazes back at her, mouth set in a determined line.

She closes her eyes for a moment. “Have a biscuit, Potter.”

Harry recognizes it for the dismissal it is, takes a ginger newt with a quiet “thanks”, and leaves McGonagall to contemplate the brightly colored pamphlets strewn across her desk.

*

"Mate, what is that?"

"What is what?" Harry hurriedly tucks a leaflet out of sight. Ron's eyes follow its progress into his bag, where it joins a number of broken quills, a recent copy of the Quibbler (subspecies of the Blibbering Humdinger sighted off Cornwall), and a few Weasleys Wizard Wheezes products.

"That pamphlet," Ron says.

"Nothing, I swear. Just something I found lying around in the common room. Er, Peakes or someone left it. You know how fourth years are."

"Is it one of those Society of Wandering Devotees things?" Ron asks suspiciously narrowing his eyes, rather like Hermione's ginger cat. The resemblance was almost uncanny at times.

"Er, no, of course not. I don't know what you're talking about, Ron."

"Right. Harry, you know those are a hoax? They are, aren't they, Hermione?"

Hermione pops her head up from her own NEWT revising. "Their 'Voyage Through Dream Worlds World Tour' ‘Be a Traveler with us’?? Oh yes. That's a hoax. Or an initiation into a cult. I wouldn't touch that if I were you."

"I know, I know." Harry grins at them. "I wasn't looking to join up or anything. Not exactly. Just curious."

"Cult-curious, mate? Bad." Ron says this decisively.

"How is The Society of Wandering Devotees a cult if no one even knows who leads it or what they're really worshipping?" Harry protests.

"But it's the Wanderer, Harry," Hermione says. "Haven't you seen him in your dreams?" Everyone’s seen him, or so the rumors go, and Hermione has no reason to think Harry is any different.

"I dunno." The man he met in his dreams didn’t fit any of the vague descriptions people gave, which ranged from “short and compact and quite pretty” to “dressed like a Muggle in jeans and hiking boots”. Hermione’s always insisted he has a single red eye and a tongue of flame. Clearly they’re talking about different people. But Harry has never told Ron and Hermione about his wizard. He doesn't know quite how.

"How're your revisions, Harry?" Hermione asks, in a bid to change the subject.

"About how you'd expect." He pulls out his own notes, covered in doodles of eldritch abominations and Professor Black's favorite spell diagrams. "I'm bloody sure I'm fucked."

Ron points at a particularly strange doodle of a hooded figure facing off with a writhing mass of tentacles. "Er, is that you, mate? You look like you're winning."

Harry rolls his eyes. “Could be anyone. I’m pants at drawing.”

"Positive visualization is questionable effective at best," Hermione snaps. Crookshanks hops up in front of her, knocking several rolls of parchment to the floor. "Oh, for heaven's sake." She dives down to retrieve them.

Later, when Harry's ensconced behind the hangings of his four-poster, Ron, Dean, Neville, and Seamus all sound asleep, he pulls out the pamphlet again (“TRAVEL WITH US!”), tracing the engraving of vague outdoor scenery on the front and wondering…

Do they know something he doesn’t?

*

"Look alive, Mr. Potter!" Professor Alphard Black whistles, wagging a finger. "This is the very last lesson before examinations begin, you know."

"Professor, can I speak to you after class?" Harry mumbles, shaking himself from his stupor. His sleep had not been a bit restful the previous night. It rarely was.

"Well, of course you can. Do I have time is the question." He consults his calendar, Spellotaped lopsidedly on the blackboard, so covered in ink blotches that Harry has no idea how he can read it. "Appears I do."

"Fantastic." Through the rest of the reviewing, wherein Draco Malfoy hexes Neville's hat, and Neville responds brilliantly in kind, Harry manages to keep his attention fixed. He knows all the material already. Defense is his best subject, always has been.

"So, Harry," Professor Black says as everyone files out at the sound of the bell. "What was it you wanted to see me about?"

"For advice," Harry mutters.

Black grins. "Well, as you know, my family disowned me, and I was the only candidate for this job back in the day. Don't know how helpful my advice is likely to be."

Harry laughs. "I'm sure it'll be good enough for me."

"We'll see about that. Fire away." Black lounges in his desk chair. Right now, Harry can't help but see Sirius in him. Sirius was also disowned. It's a point of pride between them, on those rare occasions when Sirius drags the professor to a Potter family gathering.

"I was wondering what you know about…about the Wanderer. No one can agree what he looks like, your niece worships him or something—"

"My dear niece is obsessed with him, Harry." The professor shudders. "This is why no one invites her to Christmas dinner. Except for dear Narcissa, I suppose. Or so I've heard. No one tells me anything."

"Right. So, what do you know?"

"No more than most, I'd wager. I've never seen him." Black seems somewhat disappointed at this. "Everyone says so much about him. How creepy he is, how mysterious, how he just watches them, how he never looks the same way twice, you know? I've never had the pleasure."

Harry averts his gaze. "I've seen him, I think." Because Easier to lie, than to make things even more complicated, right?

(And the Wanderer isn’t human, and _he_ is…)

"Congratulations, then." Black grins. "Ah, right. What did you want to know?"

"What your niece knows, I guess, if not anyone else you've talked to."

The professor studies him for a moment, then seems to decide something. "Obsession doesn't necessarily equate with knowledge, Harry. You may think you know, given the amount of thought you put in, but do you really?" Black turns to a picture of an Inferius affixed to his wall. "My obsession on the undead, for example, borders on unhealthy (or so people tell me), but how much do I truly know?"

"Am I supposed to answer that?" Harry hedges.

"I'd prefer it if you didn't try. I need to keep some of my dignity here." Black rolls his eyes. "All right, here's what I've got. The Wanderer is only a man."

"What?" Harry stares. "That can't be right." (His heart leaps into his throat.)

"A wizard, yes. An immensely powerful one, more likely than not. Possibly unable to die. But that's about all I've pieced together."

"Thank you," Harry says, not sure if he’s the least bit thankful.

"Told my niece the same thing once, when we just so happened to, erm, meet somewhere. She nearly gutted me with that ritual knife she seems to carry everywhere she goes. We haven't spoken since."

As Harry makes to go out into the corridor, the professor calls him back. “You know, Harry, you should ask Professor Dumbledore. His theories may be more interesting than mine.”

“Okay,” Harry replies, nodding. “I’ll think about it.”

(He promptly forgets.)

*

Harry casts the last defensive spell of his NEWT with a grand flourish, his wand exultant in his hand.

"Bravo, Mr. Potter!" Professor Tofty, bald and papery skinned and quite near-sighted, congratulates him, writing a rather indiscreet O in the margins of his notes.

"Thank you, sir," Harry says, gracious as he can be without throwing his hands in the air in triumph and relief. The Great Hall is filled with the sound of flying objects as other students frantically cast their own final spells. Harry catches sight of Parvati smirking over the dummy she has deftly bound with glimmering silver chains, which Harry recognizes as magic-inhibiting. He waves at her, and she waves back.

"Well, we're done here. You may go."

Harry leaves on light feet. The Entrance Hall is deserted; all those who have already finished are in the grounds, sprawled out in the grass or playing catch with a liberated—according to Dean—quaffle or attempting to commune with the Giant Squid, who seems rather bored as it waves its tentacles aimlessly.

Harry finds Hermione reading over an answer sheet, her face pinched in concern.

"You did fine," he tells her, leaning against the tree beside her.

She huffs. "I think I missed one. 'Demonstrate an understanding of the principles of necromancy by outlining the surest process for destroying Inferi.' I put 'burn them with pure fire, but I think it doesn't matter what sort of fire!"

"That’s…" Harry begins. "Well, that's tiny."

“And tiny could be the difference between an O and an E!” she snaps. “And when you’re Muggle-born like me, an E could mean a job you didn’t get.” She wads the parchment.

“Give me that.,” Harry says. She glowers in suspicion. “I’m going to take your mind off it. There’s nothing you can do now, and you probably did better than you think you did.”

She hands him the parchment, and he gives it a pair of wings —somewhat lopsided, but functional —and it flaps laboriously about their heads.

She snorts and Summons it, removing the wings. “Brilliant.”

Ron is one of the last to finish. He joins them, looking glum.

“How did it go?”

Ron mouths silently for a moment, looking a bit like a fish.

“That well?” Harry pats him on the shoulder.

“Why are you so chipper?” Ron wheezes.

Harry just grins.

*

Harry wants.

He doesn't quite know what it is he wants. He feels it, a burning, consuming desire, a lust so woven into his being that he cannot find where it ends and he begins.

He lays beneath his blankets, behind his curtains, far too awake. Ron snores deeply.

When he does drift off, it isn't to anything restful. A wasteland unfolds before him, riddled with jagged boulders and dirt, no green in sight, everything permeated with the sick-sweet stench of death and rot. Harry gags against the fug and covers his nose with his sleeve. But it does no good; the smell clings to everything.

"Come, Harry." He appears behind him. Harry senses it before he hears him, a prickle at his neck or a churning in his gut.

"Where will we go?" Harry asks, turning his head to find the towering serpentine man standing, or perhaps floating, on the hill just above where Harry teeters.

"Away from this, if it suits you."

"It does," Harry admits. They walk in the manner of this place, a not-quite-walking that begins in thought. Harry strolls beside the wizard in moderate ease, the wasteland morphing first into something worse—a battlefield, covered in the decaying bodies of the fallen—then into more familiar surroundings.

It's darker here in this old, friendly cave, the place Harry suspects the wizard hides himself when he isn't roaming. But Harry's never dared ask.

"How quickly time passes here," the wizard says, tossing a ball of emerald fire from his hand into a pit dug in the cave's back corner. It takes instantly, filling the room with eerie light.

Harry shivers. The temperature is never right here, always too cold, and yet the air feels normal against his skin. "How does it pass?"

Nothing feels like a discernible shape, not even time, a constantly warping that leaves Harry confused for days when he wakes from dreams like these. What is forward? What is still?

"When I try to emerge," the wizard murmurs, "it is difficult to find myself. It is far easier to remain, for the world still moves in ways I understand."

"What do you mean?" Harry asks. The wizard usually just drops hints like this one, without ever clarifying anything.

Tonight is different. The wizard studies him, his red eyes strange in the green firelight. "I have seen many things, Harry. I found my way here. I may leave, but I have forgotten how to stay away."

"Where _are_ you?" Harry asks. His pulse speeds up in anticipation. If he can find the wizard in consciousness, then maybe he could keep him from this place. Remind him how to stay away.

"Where, indeed." The wizard smiles, indulgent. "Would you try to save me, Harry Potter? As, I suppose, I have saved you so many times?"

Harry can feel himself blushing and wonders how obvious it is. "Maybe," he mumbles. "I wouldn't know where to go."

"It isn't so difficult," the wizard says. "There is a place in the waking world whose topography resembles this place. If you find that, you will find me."

Harry snorts. He couldn’t have been more cryptic if he’d tried. “Resembles…how?”

“A clearing that is sometimes there and sometimes not. You will know it, and you will wonder how you ever missed it.”

*

"You want to do what?" Hermione splutters the next morning when Harry confides his plans to her. "Go on some wild goose chase to find… Harry, you want to find the Wanderer?"

"It may not be the Wanderer," he snaps, peeved. "He's never been anything but kind to me. It can't be the Wanderer."

"I have never seen his face," she allows. "He never appears the same way twice, , and he creeps up on you and whispers..." She shakes her head, her brown curls rippling about her shoulders. She puts a hand to them, annoyed. "You know, I've been thinking."

"You're always thinking," Harry teases.

She swats at him. "Oh, hush. Maybe I should cut them off."

Coincidentally, Ron's little sister, Ginny, comes sailing past them, her hair now short enough to form spikes. "I approve, Hermione," she says. "I feel so free. Hair doesn't get in my mouth during Quidditch anymore." She smirks. "Anyway, I've got a date for breakfast, and then…all day. See you." She disappears through the portrait hole.

Harry and Hermione stare after her, mystified.

Ron emerges, hair sticking up in every possible direction. "Eid I miss something?"

"Ginny," they reply.

"Oh. I thought you'd gone to breakfast without me."

"Never," they assure him.

*

"So, where will you start?" Hermione wonders as the three of them commandeer a back table at the Hog’s Head that night for the seventh years’ end of year bash, for which the Hog’s Head was traditional because drink prices were always conveniently slashed in half as soon as NEWTs finished. "There's nothing about the dream world in any books I've read. It exists. We all know it exists. But there is no proof."

"It’s creepy," Ron mutters, picking tentatively through his plate of hash, as if looking for something to dispose of. (It’s the Hog’s Head. No one knows what’s really in the food.) "Merlin, so bloody creepy. Mate, you're mad."

Harry shakes his head, leaving his own food untouched. He’d ordered a pot pie, but he thinks there may be fur of some kind growing on it, although it smells delicious. "I don't think so. I don't feel mad."

"No one ever feels mad," Ron says darkly. "My great uncle Bilius was happy as a clam before he saw the Grim and died."

"Grims aren't real," Hermione huffs. The barman brings them their second order of drinks and leaves in a hurry, thankfully.

"Yes they bloody are!" Ron finds what he’s looking for —a hunk of corned beef —and flings it skyward. It sails in a beautiful arc before somehow landing in the very center of their table. They all eye it askance. The corned beef takes a bow, then Vanishes.

“Er, should I be impressed?” Harry hedges.

Hermione, frowning at Ron in deep contemplation, sighs. She takes a deep pull from her drink. "But you just said your uncle was mad!" she goes on, as if there was no interruption.

Ron glowers at her. Harry sighs and leans in between them.

"Can't they both be possible? Grims are real and Ron's uncle went mad."

"This is not what we're arguing about," Hermione huffs. Ron opens his mouth to retort, but at Harry's quelling look, he subsides.

"What are we arguing about, then?" Ron retorts.

"Harry's insane, dangerous, likely to get him killed idea."

"Oh, right. That." Ron throws back his fire whiskey and coughs. "Mate, I like you a lot. Please don't die."

"I'll try," Harry says, patting him on the shoulder.

"We could—" Hermione hiccups, sloshing some of her beer onto the table. "We could go with you."

"You're mad, too," Ron slurs.

“I’m drunk.” Hermione winks at him. “But I don’t feel mad.”

They get more drinks and join the dancing. Harry ends up with Theo Nott, and the rest of the evening passes in a warm blur.

*

Harry thinks he may have blacked out at the Hog's Head.

He's lying in a suspiciously brownish pool, floating comfortably. When he tries to sit up... Well, he has conclude this isn't water, for he can't move beyond futile kicking, which only seems to make his predicament worse.

_Relax_, he tells himself. _Make it water._ But the image of the Transfiguration will not come to him.

_Fuck this._ He imagines an explosion upward, spitting him onto solid ground. He imagines flight, rising swift and free through open sky and frigid cloud.

It's enough. He flops onto the patch of wilting reeds like a dying fish. The reeds, to his relief, do not try to eat him. They're just reeds, for once, not Devil's Snare or one of its numerous, nameless cousins in disguise.

Where is the wizard? Harry searches the writhing landscape for any sight of him, but there are only reeds and mud-water.

In the distance, there is a flash of fire, a deep scarlet that gives the horizon a sinister cast. Harry stares, transfixed. What could it be? Here, it is best to never give in to curiosity. Harry's learned this the hard way, multiple times. But the bloody fire is new. He scrambles through the reeds, catching his shirt on hidden brambles. Then all at once there is a slope, and he careens head over heels into a clearing.

"Ow," he mutters, sprawled on his back. "Bloody hell."

"This is the place, Harry Potter." The wizard appears in the clearing's center, his robes rippling in a breeze Harry cannot feel. "This clearing. Many have found me here but did not know it."

"How?"

"How do you find it?" The wizard prowls in a narrow circle, Harry at its center. "It is not far, Harry Potter. You may find it more easily than you can imagine. But it exists outside time. You must go there. Find it, while you are awake."

“But how—”

The wizard puts a finger to Harry’s lips, and it’s such a surprisingly, gratifyingly intimate touch that Harry is transfixed. “You will find it,” he hisses into Harry’s ear, his breath neither cool nor warm. “I need you to find it, before it’s too late.”

In the morning, Harry's hangover is fucking epic. His head hurts like something is trying to drill its way out the back of his skull, and his mouth tastes like something curled up and died.

They were all leaving Hogwarts today. Off to Merlin knew where in a world that probably wasn't ready to receive them.

Harry ends up on the floor in a tangle of blankets and a moan of pain. The floor was never comfortable when he became so intimately acquainted.

"Boat," Ron mutters into his pillow. "Gonna sail out of here, Harry."

"That's right," Harry groans. "Then we'll only come back as professors or investigating aurors or something."

"If you come back as a professor, we can't be friends anymore," Ron says, sitting up gingerly. "I mean that, mate."

"But Ron, being a professor is a noble profession."

"Noble my arse. If you want to deal with snotty-nosed brats and Slytherins and Malfoy's spawn�" Ron shudders. "Nope. We really couldn't be friends."

Later that day, after farewells (“I’m not crying. There’s just something in my eye!”), a rousing and inspiring speech by Professor Dumbledore (who’s dressed in lavender robes and tells them that the Adventure, that flighty temptress, awaits them), etc., etc.,), They sail across the lake, their heads craned back to catch the very last sight of Hogwarts in the late afternoon sun.

"It's beautiful," Ron says, wiping his eyes.

Hermione clutches a plaque to her chest. Professor McGonagall had given it to her “for getting some of the highest marks this school has seen in years”, teary-eyed.

The Giant Squid waves a tentacle. Seamus blows a kiss back. Harry hears several people retch. Seamus's adoration of the giant squid is known.

"That's nasty, mate," Goldstein shouts. "Aim higher, like for the thestrals."

"I don't fuck death horses," Seamus protests.

"Your loss."

The rest of them roll their eyes.

Under a bridge, where they all have to duck their heads. Harry takes one final look at the castle.

It was home. He hopes he has a chance to come back.


	2. Chapter 2

MANY YEARS AGO

How does one reach the dreamworld? A dash of whimsy, two splashes of nostalgia, several cups of bad luck. Mix it all together. Ingest. Don't die. It won't be pleasant, wherever you end up.

Harry heard this sometime at school, from a rather batty (or so the other kids said) art teacher that he absolutely adored, who spent most of the class muttering about what their pictures meant for their future. Harry never understood what she meant, but she said his were always very interesting. His aunt clucked disapprovingly when she overheard him telling Dudley about her on one of the rare occasions Lily took Harry to visit. (James never bothered to go, preferring to stay home and play a game of backyard Quidditch with his friends.)

“The dreamworld isn’t real, Diddykins,” Petunia interrupts.

“Yes it is!” Harry explodes. “I’ve seen it! Mummy says so. Ms. Trelawney says so, too!”

“I never believed you, anyway,” Dudley replies. “You’re always so boring.” He wanders off. If his mother hadn’t been watching, he probably would have given Harry a friendly, painful tap with his fist in farewell.

Harry’s mum just shakes her head when she hears about it and tells Harry not to talk about the dreamworld with Dudley anymore.

*

"Harry, please no more exploring the dreamworld," his mum says frequently. When he’s nine, she gives him something. "This dream rune will help. If you keep it in sight when you go to sleep, you'll be able to use it to catch the monsters before they catch you."

It’s not much to look at: a few squiggly shapes inked onto a bit of parchment. She hangs it above his bed and gives it a pat. “I asked Pandora Lovegood herself to make it. She knows everything about runes and experimental magic.”

"Catch them?" He doesn’t really like the sound of catching monsters. It’s better to stay far away from them, in his experience, or to wait for the wizard (who says he’s not a monster but won’t tell Harry what he _is_), or to just run.

"Well," she smiles tightly. "I suppose they avoid you more than you catch them, but it's for the best."

Harry tries the dream rune only once. It feels like trying to wrap his mind around a tangle of sticky thread, and then unspooling it, making a lasso out of it. The first time, it snaps back on him. He fights it, bites at it. It's no use. The silvery threads wind tight. Harry slumps back, sure he's trapped himself here. What happens now? Will he be able to wake up?

(This isn’t how it feels for his mum, he learns later. It’s more like a shield of some kind.)

"Quite a bind there, Harry Potter."

"My mum thought it would help."

The wizard tilts his head. "Dream runes are tricky, I hear. I've never attempted the use of one, myself. Why limit what I see, what I may learn?"

His robes are pressed as if freshly washed, but charmingly ragged. They whip about his thin ankles as he paces around Harry's crumpled form. Harry glares up at him. "Will you help me?" he asks, plaintive. "You've helped me before." _You’ve always helped me._

"I have, at that." The wizard —is he a wizard, Harry wonders, for the hundredth time? —crouches in front of him and holds his hand out over the manifestation of the dream rune, and it unravels with a disappointed little whimper, the silvery threads retreating.

"Such things only work on dreams, boy. I am no dream." He bares his teeth, and they are sharper than they ought to be.

If he is a monster like all the rest, Harry decides at that moment, then he is Harry’s monster. He has always been kind, in his way.

Present DAY

Harry’s arrival home isn’t exactly enjoyable. It never has been. His parents still live under the same roof, and he loves them both individually, but together…

They’re cordial, of course. They live their separate lives. Harry doesn’t understand why they don’t make the separation official.

(They tried to explain it to him once, about wixen marriage ceremonies and magic of two more powerful together than torn apart…but it never quite made sense. His dad and Sirius’s magic would be better together, wouldn’t it?)

They’re nothing like Ron’s parents, and sometimes, he desperately wishes they were.

“How did everything go?”

They made dinner together. Unfortunately, it’s just the three of them here tonight. Which is better for what Harry has to say, but still not what he wants to deal with. “I’m, er, going to take some time to travel before I start —”

“Time off? Harry, Auror acceptance tests start next week. How much time do you mean?”

“A…bit? I don’t know yet.”

Lily shakes her head, already worried. “This is the first we’ve heard of it.”

“I’ve never known how to say anything about it. Ron and Hermione didn’t even know till a couple days ago. And it’s not that big a deal. We won’t be gone long.”

"Is it one of those traditional Pureblood World tours, Harry?" his dad groans. "That's not like you. I thought you were going straight into the Auror office when you finished school. Gotta get a head start, no time for dawdling. Promotions wait for no one. Vigilante cultists wait for... well... less than no one."

"Dad, I don't want to be an auror. And no, not a world tour."

“Well, great! Sirius’s little brother went on one, snobbish brat that he is.” Then the rest of what Harry said seems to register. James stares, face crumpling in disappointment. "You don't?" He slumps, and Harry feels like he's kicked a puppy.

"Harry," Lily says. "You've never expressed any interest in traveling _or_ in the deeper parts of magic. What brought this on?"

"I just…" How does he tell them that he's pursuing the figure of their nightmares? The one that, according to occasional Prophet headlines, has inspired so many horrors?

Conclusion: say nothing and continue this deception.

Easy.

At least, it would have been, until Harry sees something over his dad's shoulder. It reaches out with tentacles and mouths, a hundred hundred rows of jagged teeth bared, dripping greenish-gray slime all over the carpet. "Dad," Harry shouts. "Look behind you."

James whips his head around…and blinks. "There's nothing behind me, Harry. You're yanking my chain."

"No, I'm not." Harry fires a curse at it, but it just passes through. The creature waves a tentacle and winks at Harry with five of its gelatinous eyes, then disappears as suddenly as it came.

"Maybe you should lie down, sweetheart," Lily says. "NEWTs are hard, and I'm sure you're tired out. We’ll discuss this more when you’ve had some rest. And no curses at the dinner table. You know that."

"I agree," James says. "Fucking awful tests. You don't really need them."

"James!" Lily sighs.

“What? Everyone knows NETS are a conspiracy manufactured by the Examinations Authority wixes…”

Harry makes his escape.

He does go to bed. He tosses the old dream rune—the parchment curling at the edges—behind his bedside table. Lily always puts it back when he leaves. He's never had the heart to tell her how useless it is.

When Harry finds himself in the same clearing—he knows it’s the same, even though none of the trees are the same and all the wildflowers have grown scales and teeth and are snarling quietly to one another—he searches frantically for the wizard. He needs to know if that monster was real, or if he’s going mad.

But the wizard is nowhere to be found this time. Harry wanders the clearing, disappointed.

*

Harry means to skip breakfast the next morning and meet Ron and Hermione early, but he gets derailed by the _Daily Prophet_ of all things.

_If anyone has any information on the whereabouts of Bellatrix Black, please contact the Auror department by our secure Floo connection or through one of the post boxes in Diagon Alley with our seal. All tips and letters are read, and we appreciate everything you do._

_(If you see anything suspicious, anything at all, please let us know.)_

James watches Harry read. “Right, Harry. Galivanting about the country with Bellatrix and her toadies on the loose is a spectacular idea.”

Sirius, who must have arrived while Harry was still asleep, jerks his head up from where he was slumped at his usual spot at the table. “Harry, what?” He nearly knocks over his tea.

“He says he doesn’t want to be an Auror and is going on some quest or other instead.” James sighs.

“I’m right here.”

“Leave it, James.” Lily passes by, ready to leave for work, and stopping only to scoop up a bowl of porridge and her keys (a ring of magical ones, all in different shapes). “We’ll talk later, when there isn’t an audience.”

“Whatever.” James and Sirius leave not long after, arm in arm, off to no doubt respond to those letters in the Auror postbox.

Harry walks about the house, searching in every corner for anything suspicious or out of the ordinary. More monsters. Traces of monsters. Anything that would prove he’d seen that thing yesterday.

Nothing.

The old gray cat, curled in a patch of sunlight in his mum’s potions lab (an alcove off the entryway that isn’t much more than a window and a long table) watches him idly.

“Have you seen anything, girl?” he asks, peering around the row of jars on one of the wall-mounted shelves.

She twitches an ear and ignores him.

There’s nothing out of ordinary in the kitchen. Nothing different about the sitting room, except that that old vase that Aunt Petunia sent for Christmas one year has disappeared. Harry doubts this has anything to do with tentacled monsters, though.

His mum’s bedroom looks exactly as he remembers it when he peeks in, as does his dad’s.

Maybe he really did just imagine it, but it had seemed so real…

*

Ron convinces his parents that he’ll only be gone for a couple weeks, and that he’s scheduled to take the Accidental Magical Reversal Squad entrance exam as soon as he gets back. “Yeah, I know, Percy works there, but the fieldwork is supposed to be cool, mate, especially ‘cause of all the ideas people get from dreaming, you know?” (Harry doesn’t know, but he can make a lot of terrible guesses.)

Hermione tells her parents that she’s going on a research trip, and they are consequently excited for her. (“It’s some research with some friends of mine, the ones you met last summer.” And they are even more pleased.)

Harry wishes he’d been similarly dishonest in hindsight.

Diagon Alley isn’t too crowded today, and Ron and Hermione are easy to find as they loiter outside an odds and ends shop. Bouncing coins and other trinkets fill the window display. “We’re not getting any of those,” Hermione says to Ron, who wilts.

They do end up at much less exciting places, where they purchase surprisingly little. “Charming nonmagical things is cheaper than paying for the charms yourself,” Hermione explains. “We just need a food kit or two.”

“What, you can’t just Conjure food?” Ron protests.

“No, Ron! Gamp’s Fifth Law of magic says that you can’t create something by conjuration, only temporarily transfigure out of something else, or duplicating it.” The food kits have some basic, already preserved nutrient-rich slop.

“Easier to duplicate simpler items,” Harry guesses, wrinkling his nose.

“That’s right.” The proprietor nods invitingly at a row of more expensive kits behind her. “And for an even better price, you can get slop with seeds. Even better for you.”

“I think we’ll just pack our own, thanks,” Harry mutters and scurries out.

“Okay, I’m not looking forward to eating. What about tents?” Ron has gone a little green. Harry can’t blame him.

“Let’s talk more over ice cream I haven’t been to Fortescue’s in ages.” And he’s offering free scoops to anyone who can answer a deceptively difficult trivia question. It ends up being so difficult that not even Hermione can answer it.

“Do you remember when we came here before third year? After you won that Daily Prophet drawing?” Harry asks Ron, leaning back in his wicker chair and savoring his chocolate raspberry cone.

“And Hermione got Crookshanks,” Ron sighs. “And I got my wand.”

“Wasn’t that the year with the roaming golems?” Hermione cuts in. “The ones made of stone that ‘wreaked havoc across the country and made us remember that we are all indeed mortal’.”

“Oh yeah, those.” Harry shivers. “And Professor Black said the magic required was in old books only the wealthiest Purebloods could ever find.” After which he’d proceeded to describe exactly how those golems were likely made because he thought they should know. Make such knowledge common and lessen its power.

Harry had nightmares for weeks, not that he didn’t _usually_ have nightmares, anyway.

“Are the three of you reminiscing about Hogwarts?” Fortescue appears silently beside their table. “That’s history. Your next scoops are 25% off.”

They get second scoops. Harry sticks with chocolate raspberry, while Ron tries Disarming Charm, a horrifying-looking concoction that is bright red. Hermione gets a custard. She and Harry watch Ron in interest.

“What does it taste like?”

“Magic,” he replies through a mouthful. “The best kind of magic. And maybe just a hint of…” He gags, his face going gray. “Maybe a bit like blood.”

When they go to complain, Fortescue stares in confusion at the bloody ice cream, now melted into smears down the sides of the cone. “I didn’t make that,” he maintains. He magics the rest of it into a container and hides it away. “Merlin’s beard. Things really are going a bit strange around here.”

*

His mum gets home before his dad. “hey, Harry,” she says as she finds him pacing the sitting room, looking for anything out of the ordinary again.

“Hi.”

“How are Ron and Hermione?” She perches on the edge of the sofa and pointedly puts her feet on the coffee table; she’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

“Good,” he says, stopping his pacing and turning to watch her. She’s impassive but not unhappy, far as he can tell, so he relaxes a little and sits beside her.

She smiles and pulls him against her side. “What do they think of your travel idea?”

“They’re going with me,” he replies, trying to lean his head against her shoulder; he’s quite a bit taller than she is, as tall as his dad.

“Good. I was afraid it was just you on your own. And what are they getting out of it?”

“I dunno. They just said they were coming with me and that there was nothing I could do to stop them.” He turns his head and buries his face in her robe. She smells like a potions lab. It reminds him of Potions, his least favorite class even though Professor Snape is her best friend, and of the rare occasions when she would brew him Dreamless Sleep. It never helped, but he hadn’t the heart to tell her.

“Harry, I don’t care what you decide to do. I want you to do what makes you happy. God knows I think being an Auror is dangerous, especially now. The fatality rates have gone up quite a lot in the last couple years alone.” She pets his hair, and he feels so young.

“Thanks, mum—”

“That said,” she goes on, “I’d prefer if you didn’t go on this trip of yours. I don’t know what’s out there, Harry, but I don’t think it’s safe. But you’ll go anyway, no matter what I say.”

“Yeah.”

She sighs, fond and exasperated. “Too much like your father sometimes.”

“We’ll be careful,” he promises.

“I know you will. Take this anyway.” She rummages in her handbag—which must have an Undetectable Extension Charm on it, there’s no way what she pulls out would have fit otherwise—and hands him another dream rune.

It’s carved onto wood, rather different than the one he’s always had, with larger loops and a few different characters he doesn’t recognize. “My other one keeps tangling me up and—”

“This one is better. It’s protection only and won’t fight you,” she promises. “Please don’t leave it.”

He assures her he won’t. If this is the price he has to pay for her, er, resignation, then he’ll pay it.

“I’m sure you have a good reason for going, Harry.” She laughs a little. “Your father and I went off on a romantic getaway right after we finished Hogwarts. More getaway than romantic.” She rolls her eyes. “He’d never been camping before, and I’d never done it the wixie way. It was a disaster. I think the three of you have more brain cells between you than we did.”

“How’d you know we’d be camping?”

“The missing tent from the hall closet, Harry. Please take it, by the way. It needs someone to use it. Poor thing sometimes cries to itself.”

Harry grins. “I love you, mum.”

“I love you too, Harry, so much.” She gives him a squeeze. “There’s one more thing, something I haven’t told you before.”

Harry stiffens. “What is it?”

“Do you remember Ms. Trelawney? Your old art teacher?”

“Yeah. She was my favorite.”

“Right. She told me something to me once, about you. I don’t know quite how accurate it was, of course. They always said she was batty. But…”

“What?” This can’t be good. He’ll take anything though, if it explains what’s happening to him right now, explains what he’s seeing.

“’He has power, and he will not die.’” Lily shakes her head, her hair tickling Harry’s cheek. “Doesn’t sound so bad, does it?”

“Why did you remember it? And how did you know it was about me?”

“She was in some sort of trance. And there was more to it. ‘Your first born’ I think.”

It’s something, Harry supposes. He just hopes it has to do with that monster behind his dad and blood ice cream and whatever else, and not some other disaster.

*

There is a train, and Harry is on it. He leans back against the upholstered seat, relaxed by the swaying and the sound of the passing ties. There is the smell of soot and ash. No one else seems to be aboard.

Where is he going? Somewhere exciting, no doubt. He relaxes into the upholstered seat. The scenery is jewel-bright, a verdant wonderland.

"Mate, what the hell?" Ron is shaking him. Harry struggles to sit up, the world spinning strangely.

"Mate, you just sort of went to sleep. You have, erm, narco-whatsit or something?"

"Narcolepsy, Ron," Hermione says quickly. “And no, he may not have it. That was just a thought.”

"There was a train," Harry says. "I thought we'd left already. It was nice.”

Hermione shakes her head. "No, we have not."

"You're sure?" Everything is blurry and swaying. Whatever just happened, he's not sure it's over. "Where are we now, then?" No, but seriously. What in the fuck?

"Office," Ron mutters. "For travel and tourism. You know. So we can pick up the rest of the stuff we need? Maps? Emergency Portkeys? Remember?"

"Er," Harry says. Yes, he remembers this, a bit. Kind of. Like trying to dig through sludge. Scraping through mud. Something.

Ron and Hermione glance at each other, saying god only knows what in that weird, quiet way they have. He hates watching them like this. So, he closes his eyes and leans back into the hard wooden chair of the waiting room.

The train reappears almost instantly. Trees speed past, their branches twining and oozing. The sky is visible through gaps between them, a deep turquoise with skidding amethyst clouds. Ah. He's definitely dreaming, then. How could he have thought otherwise? Where is he going?

The train comes to an abrupt halt, causing him to nearly topple from his seat. He digs his heels in, leans in the opposite direction of the turn. His stomach roils, for the train has stopped at a gap in the tracks, a long drop to a terribly familiar lake yawning before it.

He’s sure it’s the same lake, anyway, with the reeds in their clumps. Huh. He didn't know you could get here from the other side. Perhaps a track had formed. Perhaps someone had made a track.

The train wobbles dangerously. Harry peers out the window—conveniently empty of any glass—and sees the trees bending apart ahead of something barreling through them. Oh, fuck fuck bloody fucking hell fuck. One of the there-not-there monsters, shadow writhing, mouths yawning.

Harry scrambles across the carriage, looks out the other window. There's nothing but a steep drop on this side, but a number of bushes dot the rocks, and maybe he can catch himself on one...

He jumps. The wind whistles past. Bushes scrape his ankles, but he can't catch one. Fuck!

Can he die here?

_Fly_, he thinks. He can do that. The wizard always has, makes it look easy. So why not Harry, too?

It hurts at first. His chest tightens and his head pounds, but he's no longer falling so quickly. The train crashes through the gap behind him with a metallic screech, and he almost loses his unsteady altitude in his startlement. He hares off. It still hurts. (Why does it hurt? It hasn’t before on brooms, or even that one time on a Thestral that none of them could see but had wanted to experience anyway.)

Where does he land? There's nowhere obvious. Just trees, still writhing. Just the monster, oozing over the empty track, then plummeting with a squelch. Harry dares to look back, but whips his head back around immediately. It's not harmed at all... The train is hardly a scratch to it, where it had rushed over its tentacles and ooze. Harry gags and looks away.

There! A dark hollow. Dark hollows, often safe, incongruously. He dives for it, collapsing in relief in a heap upon the stony floor. He pants, mopping the sweat from his brow. His hands tremble. He doesn’t know if this is the same cave he’s spent so much time in the past with the wizard. It could be, but everything is so changeable here…

"Wake up now, Harry." A hand lands heavily on his back. "Now, damn it."

The wizard? But Harry is coughing and spluttering on the waiting room bench before he can confirm.

"Coughing fits now, too?" Hermione sighs, awkwardly patting his back. "Harry, you need to go to a healer, or even a doctor. In case it's not magical, obviously."

"Yeah. I’ll think about it,” he mumbles, woozy.

Ron and Hermione exchange another glance that he doesn’t like.

“Potter, Weasley, and Granger, you’re up.” The office door has opened, and a wizard waves at them.

“Finally!” Ron says, standing and stretching with a relieved groan.

“So, what are you here for?” The clean-shaven ministry official ushers them peremptorily into his office, looking bored.

“Cross-country, possibly cross-continent trip. We need emergency Portkeys and maps of magical places.” Hermione says all of this very quickly.

“Huh. You sure?” The official eyes them. “You’re not doing that Dreamworld Tour crap, are you? Because I can’t legally give you supplies for something that doesn’t actually exist.”

“No, nothing like that,” Hermione assures him.

“Fine. Fantastic. Wait.” He does a double take when he sees Harry. “Aren’t you Auror Potter’s kid? Does he want you doing this?”

“Yes, and I don’t care,” Harry mutters, still a bit bleary from the nightmare.

“That’s the spirit. Anyway, what kind of maps do you want? We have this new series for sight-seeing. Some people want to go see very specific stuff, you know? So we’ve got forest maps, old and unexplainable ruins maps, river maps (with some booklets on all the creatures you should avoid) —”

“Did you say forest maps?” Harry finally cuts in.

“Sure did. You interested?” The official pops a peppermint in his mouth and sorts through a jumbled stack of parchments before handing them a map and several other loose parchments with a list of landmarks. “Sorry, the list isn’t bound, and I’m fresh out of those handy Muggle staple things. I only made it yesterday.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s just my job.” He crunches his mint, and the smell of peppermint is suddenly too strong (probably one of those new extra-strength, extra-bastard peppermints made especially for people like this guy). “Have fun. Don’t die or get sacrificed to old gods.”

They hurry out, noses itching.

“That was too easy,” Harry frets. “A map of forests is exactly what I need, and he said he made it yesterday…”

Ron is similarly disturbed. “Well, what are we going to do? Go somewhere else for maps? Guess someone wants you to find…the Wanderer, if that’s really what we’re looking for.”

“Oh, rubbish,” Hermione snorts. “It’s all just dreams. The Wanderer can’t have time to convince someone to make new maps, would he?”

Harry and Ron shake their heads uncertainly.

“Oh, Harry, the way you fell asleep really isn’t normal,” Hermione says, not meeting his eye. “One moment you were talking, and the next you were sound asleep and twitching.”

“I’ve never seen that happen to anyone, mate, and we all see the dreamworld.” Ron’s shoulders are raised tensely, and he wanders ahead to the button to call the nearest lift.

“I’ll get it checked out sometime,” he lies. “We need to go. We have to go.”

They exchange dubious glances, but the conversation is set aside.

They leave the Ministry, paperwork and Portkeys in hand. Harry's mind circles around and around the same question. What is wrong with him? He sleeps too much and dreams wrong and sees things no one else does… And yet he’s rather certain that he’s fine, and something is coming.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A chapter a week, I said.
> 
> Life happened, then happened some more. Sorry about that.
> 
> The horror tag was meant for this chapter. Enjoy.

MANY YEARS AGO

The dreamworld changes as a person does in some respects, of course. A child will not see the same things they would see as an adult. But there are always resemblances, commonalities. It’s a logical progression, even as the dreamworld itself remains a mystery.

Harry is sixteen when his dreams begin to change. He knows they’re just his dreams and not ones brought on by dreamworld visits…at least, he’s mostly sure. (He hopes they’re just his, Merlin!) They’re fuzzy around the edges, he thinks, the way normal dreams usually are.

The wizard remains the same in these (please let them be) fantasies, but for Harry there is a shift, a burning hunger that he has never before experienced. He’s been attracted to _people_ and had relationships on and off since fourth year, but never anything like this.

“Something troubling you?” the wizard queries in one especially memorable fantasy. His scarlet eyes flash in interest, and Harry stares unwaveringly back.

“I don’t know.”

And then, with the illogical swiftness of dreams, they collide in a splintering ravishing. Harry’s mouth opens, and the wizard’s tongue thrusts inside, and it is simultaneously a single, long, snaking caress and a forked serpent’s tongue, but both are true.

(_What the fuck is wrong with me_, Harry thinks afterword, simultaneously disgusted and aroused.)

Their robes melt away like smoke, and their cocks rub together with unbearable friction, and the wizard’s cock is one, then two, and Harry quails at the thought…but then it is one again.

_What are you?_ And Harry finds, whatever the answer may be, that he wants, wants, wants.

The wizard is both human and monster, with both one cock and two.

“I am,” the wizard hisses, and pushes into Harry’s tight hole, Harry keening with the unexpected, delicious pain of it. Then he is stretched even more as the wizard’s cock seems to split and expand once more.

(As fantasies go, he admits, it isn’t terribly inspired.)

“Oh god! Oh god oh god!”

“There is no god here, boy. Only me.” Even in his haze of want, Harry knows this isn’t quite true.

“Voldemort,” Harry moans. It is not a name he knows, but it feels right as he speaks it. Voldemort silences him with a twining of their tongues, the two points of Voldemort’s once more forked one wrapping about Harry’s and holding it still.

It is a normal dream, of course. Anything is possible. But where does this name come from?

Harry would wake from these dreams, his hand pumping his leaking prick, the wizard’s—he can never remember that name when he wakes—eyes and hissing pleasure causing him to spill all over his sheets.

When Harry and Ron get drunk together off of one of Seamus’s smuggled bottles of fire whiskey, Ron confesses to wet dreams, too, most of them involving Hermione (or for a brief, strange period during sixth year, Lavender Brown) pounding him into any surface imaginable. Harry can never quite bring himself to confess his.

“Ashamed?” the wizard croons once, still just part of Harry’s fantasies (much to his…well…disappointment).

Harry bares his teeth and shakes his head. “I want to fuck you,” he says in reply, and Voldemort’s flat nostrils flare in interest.

“Now there’s a proposal I never expected.”

Harry jumps him. And it’s all very hot.

Harry hopes the wizard never finds out. Really hopes that he doesn’t already know. That would just be embarrassing.

PRESENT DAY

"Harry, please don't leave yet." James is adamant. "You can't go anywhere like this."

"I have to," Harry mutters. He, Ron, and Hermione are going this morning, rain or shine…no matter what. The world could have ended last night in an epic conflagration. They would still be going.

“Why? For fuck’s sake, Harry. Why?” James paces in frustration. Lily rolls her eyes in impatience.

“Christ, James,” she breaks in. “He isn’t doing this on a whim. He’s going with friends. I’ve even seen the maps they plan to follow. They’re doing everything right. Two months won’t make a difference.”

“Great, you’re on his side now.” James sounds bitter. “Are you sure you can’t wait a little longer, Harry? It has to be now?”

"I’m going, Dad." Even if it fucking kills him. Which it won’t. Obviously.

Or not.

"You should see a mind healer, just in case," James sys from across the room. Lily turns on him, glaring. He doesn’t take the hint. “Seen anything no one else has?”

"And that's how you want to convince him not to go?" she snarls. Harry edges out of the room. Their rows go on for hours once they get started.

He meets Ron and Hermione at Hermione’s house. They’re both fidgeting when he arrives, going through all their supplies.

“Harry!” Hermione beams. She’s cut her hair as short as Ginny’s, just as she said she would.

Ron slaps him on the back. “I’m ready for this.”

“Fantastic.” Harry doesn’t tell them about the argument with his dad. It’s not worth thinking about. Really.

Hermione’s parents come outside to greet him and Ron. “Have fun. Be safe. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” her dad says. Her mum rolls her eyes and gives them all hugs. It’s…rather nice.

Well, the three of them have everything they need. Papers for magical travel out of the country (although they may not need them), basic supplies, specialized supplies ("We can't go anywhere without this repellant," Hermione asserted repeatedly.), and books. And brooms. And dream-runes. Several different versions, in fact. The one Harry's mum had given him, a few Hermione attempted, one from a questionable shop in Knockturn Alley. One of Bellatrix Black's, that Harry had given Draco Malfoy several galleons to pinch. (He and Harry certainly would never be friends after that, and good riddance.)

It’s time.

“There are a lot of forests on this thing,” Ron groans, folding up the map and sticking it morosely back into Hermione’s bag. They’re hiking through Poppycock, a magical nature preserve, their first stop. “Some I’ve never even heard of.”

“But you have been _here_ before,” Hermione says.

“Loads of times. It’s a cheap entrance fee…you know, just a drop of blood. We could always afford it.”

Harry and Hermione exchange glances. “Is that legal?”

“Probably not.”

“Screw both of you. It _was_ legal. My parents wouldn’t have taken us if it weren’t.”

Harry and Hermione shake their heads, even more disturbed.

There were some things Harry had missed out on. His mum had insisted that he be able to pass as a Muggle, too, so most of their vacations were to nonmagical places. He’d never minded. Sometimes thinks he had it better than Ron did…in that respect, at least. He’d never had to give blood as an entrance fee.

“Oh, here’s where we pay.” There’s no one in the booth. The sign says nothing about giving drops of blood.

“The Ministry’s seal isn’t on this thing,” Hermione notes, confused. “Ron, are you sure you were supposed to pay in blood?”

“What do you —”

“This nature reserve is free, look.” She pulls out their list and points at the entry for it. Payment: _None_ is written quite clearly. And then there’s a note in smaller print with an almost chiding air: _Never give blood to strangers_.

“Merlin’s balls,” Ron mutters. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“We’ll figure it out later. Let’s just keep walking.” The old, splintery, unmanned booth seems to Vanish as they pass it.

The sun is out today, but weak. There are birds calling raucously and flittering to and fro. Harry doesn’t recognize most of them. But he thinks he may have seen a phoenix, off by itself, the gold feathers in its crest glimmering. 

The main attraction of this place is the Unforbidden Forest. “Go on in, it won’t hurt you,” the advertisements claim. Harry thinks it sounds like the perfect place to start.

“We’re looking for a clearing, you said,” Ron clarifies. “Just a clearing?”

“I guess so.” They walk. The trees are tall and gnarled, their leaves dense enough to block out the daylight.

“It’s kind of like Mirkwood,” Hermione says.

“What the hell is Mirkwood?”

“From a fantasy book,” Harry says. “I’ve never read it. Guess it was really popular in Pureblood circles back in the day when kids wanted to be cool…or so my dad says. Huge with the Muggles, though.”

“My dad loves it,” Hermione sighs. “I haven’t read it, either.” They grin at each other.

The trees rustle as if whispering to themselves. Harry catches sight of a bowtruckle on a branch, its twig-like body almost invisible except for the glint of its beady eyes. Wand trees, then, he remembers from Care of Magical Creatures. The forest seems inviting, despite the darkness. There’s nothing hostile here.

They see more birds in impossible hues and shades. There’s what Hermione thinks is a wild Kneazle, stalking through the undergrowth. It doesn’t startle when it sees them, merely flicking in ear and continuing on its way.

“Are there dragons here?” Harry wonders.

“Not in the forest, no,” Ron replies. “They’re mostly wild in Britain. No one wants to try and catch ‘em. Easier to just Obliviate any Muggles that see them.”

“Right,” Harry replies. Ron would know this. One of his brothers works on a Romanian dragon reserve. 

They continue walking, their conversation inane as they watch the magical creatures that are also interestedly observing them.

“You think this might be the place, Harry?” Hermione asks a couple hours later. The forest has lightened around them as the trees thinned.

“Let’s keep going,” Harry says, not wanting to admit how hopeful he has become.

The sun has come out, although it’s nearly time for it to set, touching the dew-soaked grass to a faint shimmer. A songbird (large and plumed and more musical than its nonmagical kin) serenades them from its perch. But…

The clearing is empty of any sort of magical residue. "This isn't it," Harry says.

"Well, of course not," Hermione sighs. "It's only our first try."

"Wait," Harry says, suddenly wary. "Wait, I think I see�" A rustle from the corner of his eye.

"There's nothing, mate," Ron says uneasily. "I swear. There's not even wind."

That couldn't be right. Harry's sure he hears something. Then there is a shift, and he's not in the clearing anymore.

"Perhaps you ought to have listened to good advice when it was offered." The wizard stands before him, pale, spidery spread hands held out, palm up. An invitation, Harry wonders? Or just helplessness?

"I'm a Gryffindor," he replies. Mostly true. The Sorting Hat had attempted to shunt him off to Slytherin, but he’d politely declined. For his purposes here, he's nothing else. "We just rush in."

"You know you're dreaming, Harry?" The wizard's sallow, waxy complexion goes even more so, in what could be considered concern, if it were anyone else.

"Yeah, I guess. Don’t know when I fell asleep, though."

"No, I suppose you wouldn't. But that’s how I ended up here."

"Oh," Harry mutters. What else is there to say? "Who were you, before?" Harry asks, before he can lose the nerve. He's asked before, but now that he's actually making progress, on his way... maybe the wizard will tell him.

"Harry, Harry." The wizard sighs, reaching out a hand. Harry takes it. His hands are always cold, always strange in texture. But not unpleasant. "If I tell you, will you have any reason left to help me? Is it not the unknown, my enigma, that draws you on?"

"No," Harry splutters, surprised. "You've always been kind to me, and everyone else fears you. I want them to...to not."

"I care little for other people, Harry. They have never done me any favors. And they have forgotten me. Many knew me, once."

"Who?" Harry wonders.

"Ah, perhaps I've said too much?"

"No, no wait." Harry grasps his hand more tightly, afraid he'll slip away, become mist or whatever else is possible here. "I've always wanted to know. Whoever you actually are, you can't be that bad..." Er, yeah. Great job, Harry. Smooth. Sirius would be proud.

The wizard raises a hairless brow. He doesn't try to pull his hand away. "Once given, knowledge cannot be taken back."

"Er, memory charms?" Harry puts in.

"Well, yes. Those." The corner of his mouth turns up. "They also cause irreparable harm to the subject when applied too frequently. But this conversation will have to wait. Your friends become more concerned as we speak."

Harry wakes to the sensation of cold water being thrown over him. "What the hell did you do that for?"

"You just kind of collapsed. We were concerned, obviously." Hermione stamps her foot. "You should have gone to a mind healer, or a doctor at the very least before we left. There is something wrong with you." She sounds like his dad. Not a comparison he’s ever wanted to make.

"It's just magic," Harry says. "Nothing wrong with me. It's always been this way."

"Has it?" Hermione does not seem reassured. "Yes, that is a good defense, isn't it?" She glares around the empty clearing. "And there is absolutely nothing here." Even the songbird as flitted off at the sound of their arguing. The day is colder, somehow.

"No, wait," Ron says, bending over and picking up what might be someone's old shoe. "Huh. Must have just been abandoned here."

It's of Muggle make, a common brand, and rather torn, as if its wearer had had it forcibly removed.

"It's kind of heavy," Ron says, then peers inside. He goes still, his eyes almost comically wide.

“Ron?” Hermione says tentatively. “What’s—”

"Oh, merlin's shriveled—" Ron flings the shoe away and scrubs his hands on his jeans. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

He is, spectacularly.

"Ron!" Hermione Vanishes the vomit and reaches for him.

He darts away, pointing frantically. "Hermione, look at it. There's still part of a foot in that thing."

"I'm not looking at that!"

Harry is, though. His stomach churns when he sees the rotting flesh, catches its putrid scent. "The Society of Wandering Devotees was here, I'll bet. Maybe they’ve been collecting blood here for…years."

“Oh…” Ron’s jaw hangs open, as if he’s searching for a good expletive, and fails to find one. “Oh,” he repeats, shivering. “Poppycock. Such a fun name for such a horrible place, isn’t it?”

Hermione picks up the shoe again, conjuring a bag around it. "We need to take this in," she says. "To the authorities, so they can report whoever this was as properly dead."

"Ugh," Ron moves away from her. "I don't want that thing near me."

“Let’s just get out of here. We’ve got a lot more to go.”

They drop the shoe and foot in an Auror postbox with a note describing where they’d found it. Much to their relief, the box seems to have an Extension Charm, and the bag fits well enough.

“They’ll be wanting to question us,” Ron sighs.

“Yeah, probably so.” Harry doesn’t want to run into his dad; he’s happy with putting any questioning off for as long as he can.

The three of them stay in a hotel that night, because they’re too creeped out for camping. Blessedly nonmagical. Ron finds it quite exciting. “But how do they clean the rooms? And…what is that?” He’s pointing excitedly at the television. “I’ve heard of those. My dad’s wild about them, but he’s never gotten ours to work. It’s always static and we can’t see a thing.”

“I’m sure this one works.” Harry turns it on, and they’re greeted with the sound of some evening news program. Harry makes to change the channel, but Hermione stops him.

“Wait!” she hisses. “Let’s see if they have anything of interest to us.”

But there is nothing of note today. Just the weather (overcast for the next week with isolated showers) and a report about a few missing persons. The usual, Harry’s sure. Muggles die a lot more easily than wixes, or so he’s always been told. Nothing to worry too much over, and they already have plenty. Harry feels a pang for the Muggles, though.

There are only two beds (the clerk had looked at them oddly when they’d asked for a third). The three of them look at each other awkwardly. “Harry and I can share,” Ron volunteers, blushing to the tips of his ears.

“We can widen the couch,” Hermione sighs. “No one has to share.”

“Oh, all right.” Ron looks relieved. Harry doesn’t really care either way.

He doesn’t dream much that night, beyond confusing, probably normal dreams with writhing figures and chanting that he doesn’t remember very well in the morning.

After a quick breakfast of eggs, toast, and orange juice, the three of them leave the hotel, Ron a bit regretfully. “I didn’t make it through all the channels,” he laments. There weren’t that many of them, but he’d kept getting absorbed. Channel 4 held is attention the longest, though the comedy program he’d stumbled on made very little sense to him. Harry didn’t understand much of it either. Three men living on an island together and doing inexplicable things? Yeah, Muggles could be weird, even to a Half-blood like him.

“Ronald, you’ll have other opportunities to watch television.” Hermione rolls her eyes, smiling. “Remember the last time you were at my parents’?”

Ron’s mood improves exponentially. “Oh right. And there were all those vid-whatsits.”

“Videos, Ron. Honestly you’re worse than your dad.” Harry grins at him.

“Take that back!” Ron puts a hand over his chest and pretends to faint.

Today’s plan is the Hidden Forest, which can’t really be called a forest. It’s a clump of trees that appears sometimes in the middle of an open field, that only wixes can see. The difficult part is, of course, actually getting into the field. A Squib owns it and charges outrageous admission fees.

“We can’t afford that. It’s Floo robbery,” Ron tells him, pushing ahead of Harry and Hermione to glare.

The balding, jowly old man wags a finger. “What are you going to do about it, eh? Curse me? It’s not as if that’s illegal, you kids might be decent.”

“Er—”

“And I don’t make much. Most people don’t stick around this long. You must really want to see it. Can’t imagine why.” He bares his crooked teeth in a satisfied smile. He knows he’s already gotten his way.

“Fine.” They toss the expected three galleons in front of him. (They’re burning through their reserves faster than they should be.)

“Ah, thank you. You kids are so generous. Have fun in there.” He waves them on past. “If you make it out alive, I’ve got some nice gossip to share with you.” He winks.

“Sure he does,” Hermione says caustically. “Wants us to stick around for as long as possible.”

“Maybe he’s lonely,” Harry replies, his tone far milder.

It _is_ just a huge, empty field. Well, there are a few sheep off to one side in a pasture, baaing to themselves. The grass ripples in the faint breeze.

“Where’s the forest?”

“You’ll find it when it wants to be found.” He leers at them. “But here, have a map, if it makes you feel better.”

The map, naturally, is as empty as the field. The three of them study it closely.

“Invisible ink?” Hermione suggests. She conjures a candle, lights it, and holds the map above it.

“What’s that?” Ron leans in.

“Way to hide writing nonmagically.” But there’s nothing there.

“Well, wandering aimlessly it is,” Harry says, putting his hands in his pockets and sauntering ahead.

They walk. The sheep observe them listlessly from their pasture. There is nothing to see.

They walk. The wind picks up, smelling of rain, but no rain falls. The air is heavy with the anticipation of it.

They walk. Harry sees a quick movement out of the corner of his eye. He hears a slithering in the grass. When he turns to get a better look, nothing is there.

The longer they go with finding nothing, the more certain Harry becomes that this is the place. It has to be. “Why are you so sure?” Ron complains, mopping sweat from his brow as they take a break for lunch. “I’m so bloody bored.”

“I know, but I’m not giving up yet.” Harry takes a bite of transfigured slop—it’s some kind of sandwich, and quite good—and frowns in concentration at the bending grass. There is something here, somewhere. Something almost familiar. Harry crams the crust of his sandwich into his mouth and gets up, drawing his wand.

“Where are you going?” Hermione and Ron scramble to follow him.

Harry points, straight ahead. There is a rippling in the air before them, and trees begin popping into view, one after another after another. It’s like traveling by Portkey, the colors too bright, the movements too fast.

“Whoa,” Ron breathes. “How did you do that?”

Harry doesn’t answer and walks between a narrow gap between two trees. They grow so close together, their branches twined so thickly that little light can get through.

“_Lumos_!” Harry holds his wand out, his heart pounding in anticipation. Could this be it? So soon? A forest outside of time, there and not there? And whatever it is that is here, the thing he sensed… It’s near. He speeds up. There are no roots on which to trip.

He hears Hermione run headlong into a branch. “That wasn’t there a second ago,” she says thickly.

No branches get in Harry’s way. His path is quite clear.

He hears Ron stumble behind him and glances around to see him land on his knees, a gnarled root snaking outward that had not been there a moment ago. Harry goes back and hoists Ron up, Hermione doing the same on his other side.

“Merlin! Merlin’s sagging balls, Harry.” Ron pants. “This place wants to kill us.”

“We’re close,” Harry says in an attempt at reassurance. “Then we can leave. Are you okay?”

“Just banged up,” Ron mutters. “But still.”

“You sense something, don’t you Harry?” Hermione peers past him. “I think I might, too.”

“I don’t feel a thing,” Ron says, frowning. “Just pain.”

“Almost there. Do you want to stay here?” Hermione looks worriedly around them.

“Bloody hell no. I could get eaten while you’re gone by one of these trees, for all we know.” The nearest trees creak, as if in response. Ron whimpers.

So they prop him up between them and continue forward. “Ankle could be sprained,” Hermione murmurs, frowning.

“Almost there, I promise.” Harry feels whatever it is so strongly that he couldn’t turn back if he wanted to. Just a few more steps, near that gigantic oak…

Ron and Hermione stagger to a halt, as if coming up against an invisible barrier. Harry keeps walking, his wand-free hand outstretched. His fingers scrape against the bark, and it seems to split open, a cavern yawning wide. Something glitters at its depths. It’s silver and blue, he thinks, but it’s hard to tell.

“Harry!” Hermione’s shout rouses him, and he turns around to see her pressed against the invisible barrier, eyes wide with fear. “Harry, stop!”

He backs away. This is not the right place, but what is it? It feels so familiar, but jagged, as though torn ruthlessly and cast aside, abandoned. As he begins to walk reluctantly away from the tree, he hears the trunk close with a thunderous snap. The call fades. It’s an invitation, now rejected, and thus withdrawn. The forest disappears as suddenly as it appeared, and the field is pristine.

“Let’s…” Hermione catches her breath. “Let’s go back to the house and…” She shivers and rubs her arms to warm them. Ron, a bit hesitantly, puts an arm over her shoulders. Harry stumbles forward on numb feet, blinking in the sudden brightness. “Where did it all go?”

“Wherever it came from, I suspect,” Hermione replies.

They return to the house, Ron walking unaided but still limping heavily.

The old man peers out at them in surprise and faint concern. “Didn’t think you’d come back this way. Most people don’t bother when they don’t find anything.”

“We found—” Harry starts. “We found… We have no idea what we found.”

“Well, now, that’s unusual.” He perks up. “Come on in for some tea. You don’t look too good.” He hands Ron a bottle of violet potion from a sideboard. “Take that for the pain. That looks like a nasty sprain.”

Ron nods gratefully and takes a swig, relaxing immediately.

As Harry, Ron, and Hermione are settling around the Squib’s scrubbed wooden table and he’s putting on the teapot, Harry asks, “How did you get this place? Do you know anything about it?”

The man tsks and wags a finger. “You answer my questions, then I’ll answer yours.”

“We found the forest, all right? Happy?” Harry leans on the table.

“Hmm, that’s a start. Find anything in it?” The kettle starts to sing, and he takes it off the stove. He adds a handful of leaves to each cup he pours, then pulls out a bottle of something and splashes some of that in, too.

“What is that?” Hermione protests.

“haven’t you had whiskey in your tea? Best way I know of.” He brings the cups over two at a time and sits in the last chair.

Harry tells him about the oak that split open and how whatever was inside seemed to _reach out_ to him.

“You didn’t touch anything, did you?” He’s leaning forward. A dust-colored cat pads out from another room, stretching as if it’s just woken from an afternoon nap. She eyes them suspiciously, before leaping into the old man’s lap. He scratches her behind the ears and croons softly to her. “Now, where were we?”

“It was eerie,” Ron breaks in. “We had to call out to him a few times. And a root tripped me.”

“They do that,” the Squib sighs. “Right. I suppose that’s good enough. Unless you have more to say? What else did you see?”

“It glittered. It looked like…maybe jewelry or something.” Harry shakes his head. “Silver? Blue? I didn’t get a good look.”

“The last people that got as far as the forest couldn’t even see that much. I’m not congratulating you, though. The less you see, the better, I’d say.”

“But what is it?” Harry snaps.

The man puts a finger to his lips. “Quiet down. You’re making Mrs. Norris nervous.” Mrs. Norris nods and obligingly flattens her ears.

“Well?” Hermione presses.

“I don’t rightly know,” he admits. “It was placed here a few decades ago, and I was sworn to secrecy unless someone discovered it. Since you have, I can talk a bit.”

They all lean forward, and he looks like he’s having second thoughts at their enthusiasm. The cat hops onto the table and noses at Hermione’s hand. In the process, she knocks over Hermione’s tea. “Oh dear.” Hermione stands up abruptly. “I don’t think she likes me.”

“She doesn’t like anyone. Don’t worry about it.” Filch gets a cloth and hands it across to Hermione, who wipes up the spilled tea and gingerly sits back down.

“Right.” He clears his throat a couple times. “My name’s Filch. Argus Filch. I started working here in 1955. I’m a Squib, obviously. Limited job prospects. But Dumbledore said he was in need of a caretaker for this house and the forest. Said it had memories and magic that were too important to him. And he paid pretty well, and even gave me a raise after he became Hogwarts’s headmaster the next year.”

Harry sees Ron trying not to fidget. The cat is eying him, too, her left ear twitching. Ron just rolls his eyes.

“And then _he_ came.” Filch’s voice goes hoarse.

“Who?” Harry asks. But he thinks he knows, and he wipes his suddenly clammy hands on his jeans.

“He knocked on the door like it was the most normal thing in the world, but I’d never gotten a visitor. Said his name was Tom Riddle and that he’d lived here for a time.” Filch shakes his head. “Dumbledore had never mentioned anyone else, but I couldn’t refuse him.

“He hid the forest. Somehow. Said only those who wanted whatever he put there enough would be able to see it at all. Fine with me. The open field didn’t bother me. Thought I could make a few Sickles if I sold tickets to people looking for the forest. He hasn’t come back to complain…”

“Do you know what he hid here? Any idea?”

“If I ever guessed, he said he’d make me forget I’d ever known. Couldn’t tell you.” Filch sighs, sloshes more whiskey into his teacup. “Anyway, it’s late. Time for you all to leave. You’ve gotten what you came for.”

They thank him and push their chairs back. The cat hisses in farewell.

Tonight is a camping night. They’ve got a spot in a Muggle-owned campground. Ron’s limping is hardly noticeable since Filch’s potion, luckily.

“I’ve never heard of Tom Riddle before,” Harry says as they’re getting ready for bed, their sleeping bags spread out on their bunks.

“I think I have,” Hermione muses. “But I can’t remember where…”

“I think I have, too,” Ron yawns.

“I’m sure it isn’t important,” Harry decides, more out of exhaustion than anything else. He’s got enough mysteries to solve.

They make noises of agreement.

Harry dreams that night, but it is vague. All he remembers in the morning is that the wizard tells him, almost wistfully, that he’s found more than he realizes.

“But I don’t know what I found,” Harry tries to say.

“You will soon enough,” the wizard says, hushing him.

*

The next couple days are blessedly boring in comparison to the first two. The forests and magical creature reserves they visit have nothing beyond what they advertise. Harry seems to enjoy it most. Everything is so pretty and alive, and he almost wishes he’d paid more attention in both herbology and Care of magical creatures, because then he would know more about the sorts of creatures they run across.

He sees other things, too, of course: those tentacled, oozing masses that Ron and Hermione cannot. They flit in and out of his sight, almost like they’re taunting him. His dreams are more of the same, except that they don’t disappear and prowl and slither. But it’s different than he remembers, almost like they have a direction in mind…

“Where are they going?” he asks the wizard the next time he finds him, shelling chestnuts beneath a fuchsia sky. “Are they planning something? Are you safe here?”

“You’re sweet to be concerned.” He sets his bowl aside and cards a hand through Harry’s hair. “But I have a little time yet, I think, before they are ready.”

“Ready for what?” Harry’s mouth goes dry.

Instead of answering, the wizard kisses him. Harry leans into it, ecstatic. Fuck yes, he thinks. Finally. The wizard’s eyes are so very soft, his hand gentle about the back of Harry’s neck.

“Rest, Harry,” he murmurs. “You have a long day ahead of you.” Harry falls into a normal dream, one that is not vivid, that is just floating along and has no plot. Comfortable.

He wakes too soon and realizes… He’d never gotten an answer.

*

On Saturday, almost a week after they’d set out, everything goes to hell. The next forest on their list is ancient. “Says it’s as old as the Hogwarts Forbidden Forest,” Hermione reads. “Remnants from old rituals may be found. It is best to never enter.”

“That sounds promising,” Ron says.

Harry nods eagerly, though foreboding curdles at the pit of his stomach. “let’s do it,” he says.

“You’re sure?” Ron looks at him pleadingly. “We’ve seen plenty of interesting stuff, mate. We don’t have to do this…”

“I _have_ to,” Harry insists.

This forest is literally called The Mysterious Forest. The marketing is immensely uninspired, but it suits Harry’s purposes to the letter.

“Oh, merlin,” Ron says, as soon as they pass the first trees. “There is something really wrong here.”

There is. The air is thick and oily, and there is a stench of dead and dying things. Hoarse avian cries are the only sounds. There is no wind, and the trees are spindly and dead. Harry has seen this before, in dreams, he’s sure of it.

They walk, and time is not a straight line, for one moment it is midmorning and the next it’s sunset, and then high noon.

“We shouldn’t have come here,” Hermione frets, her hand trembling around the handle of her wand, her fingers bloodless with the strength of her grip. “We need to turn around! Please, Harry.”

Ron is silent and shaking beside her, his freckles standing out starkly against his ghost-pale face.

Hermione spins in a circle and tries to walk in the opposite direction, but she ends up exactly where she started. “We can’t go back at all,” she hisses.

“You’re right,” someone says just ahead of them, and they stumble down an incline that wasn’t there a second ago and land in a clearing.

The grass is dead, brittle and yellowing. Around the edges prowl figures shrouded in dark robes, and at the center stands…

She’s tall, long, black hair falling down her back in waves. Her eyes are gray, Harry thinks, and heavy-lidded. She smiles a wide, delighted smile, and there is blood on her teeth. “Welcome,” she purrs. “You’ve made it just in time for our demonstration.” She nods, and the figures rush forward, wands raised.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione are firing spells. Harry was always one of the best in Professor Black’s dueling club; he’s ready for this. But these wixes are well-prepared and far more experienced.

Harry manages to Stun one of the cultists aiming for him, but another ties him up from behind, and he falls face forward. Ron and Hermione aren’t tied up, but Petrified nearby.

“We don’t need either of them making a fuss,” Bellatrix Black says, for of course it is she. She stands over Harry, her polished shoes right by his face. “Now, I’ve heard whispers about you, Harry Potter. Think yourself a bit of a traveler, don’t you?”

Harry spits at her feet. She kicks him. Hard.

“How rude! I don’t appreciate little boys like you and your disrespect.” She motions to the others, and they form a circle. “I’ve tried Muggles, I’ve tried Squibs. Now, I think I’ll try a little Half-Blood upstart.”

“Why?” Harry wheezes. It’s not just the cultists in the clearing now. One of the trees is expanding, the dead bark oozing away to reveal a gelatinous thing with a mouth large enough to swallow a grown man whole. It’s maw gapes, and it reveals nothing but endless void. Harry stares at it, horrified. Bellatrix looks in the direction of his gaze.

“What do you see, boy?”

He doesn’t reply. If she can’t see it, then why should he tell her? He owes her nothing.

“Well, never mind.” Bellatrix pulls out a wicked, bloodstained knife and rolls puts a cold hand on Harry’s right arm, probing for a vein, he assumes.

“Hurry, Bella.” One of the hooded figures breaks away from the circle to put a hand on Bellatrix’s shoulder. “It’s time! You need to—”

“Quiet, Cissy!” Bella shoos Cissy away and refocuses her attention on Harry. Harry sees another…thing…emerge, a slithering serpent-like monster, although serpent Harry knows of has a hundred tails and scales of flame like that.

They begin to chant in a language Harry has never heard. The monsters approach. Bella plunges the blade into Harry’s arm, and his blood starts to pour, thick and hot.

Harry screams. Screams until his breath runs out, until his throat is sore, until—

The clearing is suddenly a swamp, and the cultists have disappeared.

He’s not tied up anymore but huddled under a tree with leaves larger than his head. He lifts a hand to his face. There is no pain. The air is heavy, and he only wants to sleep.

“No. Wake up, now.” Cool fingers at his temples. A hand behind his back, helping him to sit up fully.

“No,” Harry mumbles. “It will hurt…”

“It certainly will, but if you don’t, you will die. I have spent far too much time on you for you to die on me now.” Lips against his ear, warm breath.

Harry manages to focus on the wizard. He’s intent, his usually smooth forehead wrinkled, his hairless brows deeply furrowed.

“What happens if I wake up? What did they do?”

“Not quite what I wanted,” the wizard sighs. “You were to be left alone.” His eyes spark with terrible rage, an inferno of molten red.

No. No. He can’t mean that he wanted the ritual, can he? Because that would make him…

“Wh-What did you want?” This has been a terrible, terrifying journey, and whatever the answer is, Harry know with a certainty he wishes he could ignore that it will be a dreadful answer.

“To know everything that can be known. And you.”

Harry starts. Did he know about Harry’s fantasies?

“You’ve called me Voldemort before,” the wizard says. It seems like a non sequitur but…

So he does know. Harry flushes, remembering here, in this place, that he had said that name without knowing why, had forgotten it on waking.

“Oh, they were fantasies, Harry, but we shared them.”

“All of them?”

Voldemort eyes him. “I certainly hope not.” He smiles, but it is too sharp to be truly kind. “Now then, find me, Harry, and please, live.”

**Author's Note:**

> I would be remiss if I don't give credit to the fic that first got me interested in Ravenclaw Tom/Voldemort.  
[Boogeyman](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1265572) by Callmesalticidae. My fic has taken a rather different approach, but I hope I've done it justice.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Wanderer (Art)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20662310) by [Limonium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Limonium/pseuds/Limonium)


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